In 2007,
Sharon Daloz Parks, Associate Director of the Whidbey Institute and Associate Professor at Harvard Divinity School, gave a
lecture titled “Working the Gap: How Now Must We Live?” What does she mean by the word “gap”?
The gap is the difference between what is now, or the current state of the world, and what is needed. In her lecture,
Parks is referring to the gap between established ways of life and what is actually needed in these turbulent and challenging
times. It is the gap between what we say we value and how we actually live. You may have noticed the elephant
in the town square. The elephant is standing squarely in the gap, challenging us to acknowledge and address things that
we’d rather not think about. Nomkhubulwane is the proverbial “elephant in the room.”
Parks puts particular emphasis on the word NOW in her question,
How Now Must We Live. Now, as the gap between wealthy and poor continues to widen. Now when four out of
five people worldwide are underfed. Now, when we are learning that there are more human beings subject to slavery at
the present time than there were at the time of the American Civil War; Now, when there are 35 million people involuntarily
displaced from their home communities by violence and war. Now when half the world still walks to get water. Now, when
climate change looms large, and species are disappearing at an alarming rate. Now when world population is exploding
and rates of consumption continue to climb putting increasing pressure of finite resources. Now when aquifers are being depleted,
polar ice caps are melting, and vast tracts of once arable land are no longer farmable. Now, when, as Thomas Friedman puts
it, the world is flat and new media technologies make it impossible to deny what is going on in the world today. Essentially,
Now that we KNOW, what will we do? How now must we live?
40 years ago, in 1970, we celebrated the 1st Earth Day. I remember the first Earth Day.
I was 8 years old, and it made a huge impression on me. In these past 40 years, we have closed or improved many of the
gaps that existed at the time. Acid rain, the result of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emitted into the atmosphere
from industrial smokestacks and power plants, has been curbed by the Clean Air Act and the implementation of a cap and trade
system. The Cayuhoga River, which caught on fire in 1969, was described at the time as oozing brown sludge and as having
no visible signs of life. The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 and the river today, while not in perfect health,
supports 44 species of fish. Closer to home, the Buffalo River was designated the first National River in 1972.
The Bald Eagle is another success story. It is estimated that in the 1700’s, bald eagles numbered between 300,000
and 500,000, but that by the 1950’s, there were only 412 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states. The Bald Eagle
was listed as an endangered species in 1967. New regulations were passed protecting the species from being
hunted and DDT was banned. The eagle population has rebounded and our national bird was removed from the list of endangered
and threatened species in June 2007.
While we have closed some gaps, other gaps have grown and new gaps have emerged. There is a swirling pile of
plastic in the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is twice the size of Texas and growing daily. It
is estimated that Americans throw out 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour of every day (1). Some of that plastic
ends up in the ocean where fish and marine life eat it. We eat the fish. The Centers for Disease Control has measured
212 chemicals in people’s blood or urine. In the latest report, there were 75 new chemicals detected. But
they can’t tell us if the presence of these chemicals in our bodies is a cause for concern. (2) Can we afford
to keep polluting the water, other species and ourselves?
The Amazon rain forest is being cut down at an alarming rate. The Amazon has been described as the
lungs of the planet producing 20% of the world’s oxygen. In addition, tropical trees absorb nearly 20% of the carbon
dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. Rain forests once covered 15% of the earth’s land surface, but more than half
of the worlds’ rain forests have been lost since 1950. Why is the Amazon being obliterated? Human populations
need places to live; they need wood to build homes and to burn for warmth and cooking. They need to clear land for cattle
ranching so that we can meet the world’s growing appetite for beef. (3)
To help put the importance of the rain forest in context, a single red maple tree,
one of the trees we find in Northwest Arkansas, absorbs 13 pounds of carbon per year. The average car drives 12,500 miles
per year and emits 2426 pounds of carbon or 12,000 pounds of CO2. An acre of maple trees absorbs 2.6 tons of CO2 per
acre or 5200 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. It takes 2.3 acres of maples to absorb the carbon that most of us emit just
in our daily commutes around town. By contrast, it is estimated that a rain forest tree absorbs 50 pounds of carbon
each year. An acre of rain forest absorbs 30,000 lbs of CO2, 6 x the amount of an acre of hardwoods (4) (5)(6). Each acre
of rain forest lost to logging not only impacts carbon sequestration, but hundreds of species find their habitat threatened.
The rate of species extinction is unprecedented. We are losing potential pharmacological discoveries that might have
produced new treatments to cure diseases. And we are doing this to ourselves.
Environmental degradation is a health issue, a social justice issue, and a civil
rights issue. How now must WE live? We people of faith, we Christians, we Episcopalians.
What are Christians called to do? What is the appropriate response
for people of faith? What does the Bible have to say about any of this? It turns out, plenty!
Genesis 1:31 – God saw everything that he had made and it was good.
Psalm 104:24-25
– O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Yonder
is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.
Psalm 148:3-6 – Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining
stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens . . . for he commanded and they were created. He
established them forever and ever. He fixed their bounds which cannot be passed.
Job 12:7-10 – But ask the animals and they will teach you, the
birds of the air and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth and they will teach you, the fish of the sea and they
will declare to you.
Even
Paul had this to say about stewardship.
1 Corinthians 4:1 – Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.
In my mind those mysteries include the mysteries of the heavens,
the stars, the ocean depths, and the millions of living things that inhabit this earth.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”.
Isn’t it up to us to see that there is something for future generations to inherit?
How can we live our lives as stewards of God’s creation? To live in
harmony with natural systems that God created? Here in the US, we are 5 percent of world population but we consume
25% of the world’s resources. If everyone lived as we do, we would need 3-5 planet earths. This is, simply
put, not sustainable.
Sustainability
is one way of working the gap. Sustainability as a lifestyle is a response, not just to the physical realities of environmental
degradation, but to the social and spiritual challenges posed by the gap. Sustainability – calls us into deeper relationship
with the creation, with each other, with generations as yet unborn. Sustainability starts with reverence and awe for
creation.
Parks suggests that working
the gap between what is and what is needed requires imagination. We must imagine the future we want for ourselves and for
our children. Imagination requires contemplation. The first contemplative duty is to behold . . . to behold God’s
handiwork in creation. It has been said that the appropriate posture of a human being before the universe is wonder,
awe, and gratitude. William Blake may have put it best: “To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild
flower; hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” The first step in living more sustainably
is to behold, to stand in awe and reverence before God’s creation.
The second step in sustainability is to act. Sustainability is not a single action, but a series
of actions, daily choices, one building on another. It requires a lifetime of practice. Henry David Thoreau described
it this way: “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep, and suck out all the
marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived”.
We must learn to live deliberately here, now, in our cities and towns. We must seek to live deliberately in Fayetteville.
To live lightly on the earth. To leave little or no trace behind. To reduce our own footprint. To leave the earth
restored and whole. We must live our lives as a testament to the sacred nature of creation, weighing our choices for
their impact on others – whether those others are people living in poverty halfway around the world or other species
or future generations.
Sustainability
is not about deprivation and living without. Sustainability is actually an opportunity to elevate the conversation. It is
a chance at renewal, a renaissance or a rebirth. Sustainability is to some extent, a resurrection. A chance to
become more fully human, more fully alive. The old way of living is dying and hopefully passing away. And a new
way of living is emerging and coming into being. Who will usher this new way into being? Who will be the early
adopters and standard bearers? Will our lives be a testament to caring for God’s creation? Or a testament
of disregard and neglect?
There
is much that we can do as individuals. We can drive less and walk more. We can eat locally grown foods. We can
vow to use reusable bags and refillable water bottles. We vote with our dollars, the power of the purse. We can purchase more
sustainable products. We can recycle more. We can turn the lights off and turn the thermostat back. but we have no choice
about the source of the electricity that comes into our homes. In order to change some of the biggest contributors to
climate change, we must make our voices heard and learn to become advocates for clean alternatives. We must speak for those
who cannot speak for themselves. We must speak for the poorest people who will bear the brunt of climate change but who have
contributed the least to the problem. We must speak for the many species threatened by climate change and water scarcity and
toxicity. We must speak for future generations, for children as yet unborn. We cannot be silent. Proverbs 31:8
– Speak out for all those who cannot speak, for all the rights of the destitute. We must learn to speak to our
elected representatives on the need for effective environmental regulation and legislation.
It has been 40 years since the first Earth Day. In 40 more
years, we’ll find ourselves in the year 2050. Someone will stand up in this pulpit in the year 2050. Is she here
now, in this church? What will she say? What stories will she tell? It is up to us to write the story of our collective
future, to live our lives as a testament to God’s creation. The story we write by our daily actions, by our choices,
can be one of renewal and resurrection. It can be a story of hope. We must close the gap. How now will we live?
Sources:
(1) http://recycling-revolution.com
(2) http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/ click on "Executive Summary"
for brief version: http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/pdf/FourthReport_ExecutiveSummary.pdf
(3) http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm
(4) http://www.coloradotrees.org/benefits.htm#Large_tree
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treeplanting
(6) http://www.sustainablehort.com/?p=234
Example: 20 lbs of CO2 are emitted for every gallon of gasoline consumed. Assuming 20 mpg fuel efficiency,
and 12,000 miles driven per year, the typical car would consume 600 gallons of gasoline in a year and would emit 12,000 lbs
of CO2 or 6 tons of CO2. A maple tree absorbs 13 lbs of CO2 per year; An acre of maple trees absorbs 5200 lbs per year
or 2.6 tons per acre per year. At that rate, it would take 2.3 acres of trees to absorb the CO2 emitted by one car.
Stated differently, a single acre of maple trees absorbs less than half of the CO2 emitted by the car in one year. An acre
of rain forest absorbs 30,000 lbs or 15 tons per year. An acre of rain forest can absorb the emissions of 2.5 cars.
An acre of rain forest absorbs 6x the CO2 of an acre of hardwood forest.
Want to do something about it? Go
to www.ecologicalcommunities.org and sign up! Make a pledge. Use EarthAid to manage your utilities. You'll see how saving
KWH also saves money and CO2.
